A KEY TO THE CLASSICAL PRONUNCIATION OF GREEK, LATIN, AND SCRIPTURE PROPER NAMES, IN WHICH THE WORDS ARE ACCENTED AND DIVIDED INTO SYLLABLES ACCORDING TO RULES DRAWN FROM ANALOGY AND THE BEST USAGE TO WHICH ARE ADDED TERMINATIONAL VOCABULARIES OF Hebrew, Greek, and Latin Proper Names, IN WHICH THE words are ARRANGED ACCORDING TO THEIR Final SYLLABLES, AND CLASSED ACCORDING TO THEIR ACCENTS; By wh the General Analogy of Pronunciation may be seen at one view, and the Accentuation of each Word more easily remembered. CONCLUDING WITH OBSERVATIONS ON THE GREEK AND LATIN ACCENT AND QUANTITY; WITH SOME PROBABLE CONTECTURES ON THE METHOD OF FREEING THEM FROM THE OBSCURITY AND CONFUM OF IN WHICH THEY ARE INVOLVED, BOTH BY THE ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. Si quid novisti rectius istis Candidus imperti: si non his utere mecum.... Hor. BY JOHN WALKER, AUTHOR OF THE CRITICAL PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY, &c. STEREOTYPED BY B. AND J. COLLINS, N. YORK. NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY COLLINS AND HANNAY, NO. 230 PEARL STREET, THE Critical Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language naturally suggested an idea of the present work. Proper names from the Greek and Latin form so considerable a part of every cultivated living language, that a Dictionary seems to be imperfect without them. Polite scholars, indeed, are seldom at a loss for the pronunciation of words they so frequently meet with in the learned languages; but there are great numbers of respectable English scholars, who, having only a tincture of classical learning, are much at a loss for a knowledge of this part of it. It is not only the learned professions that require this knowledge, but almost every one above the merely mechanical. The professors of painting, statuary, and music, and those who admire their works; readers of history, politics, poetry; all who converse on subjects ever so little above the vulgar, have so frequent occasion to pronounce these proper names, that whatever tends to render this pronunciation easy must necessarily be acceptable to the public. The proper names in Scripture have still a higher claim to our attention. That every thing contained in that precious repository of divine truth should be rendered as easy as possible to the reader, cannot be doubted: and the very frequent occasions of pronouncing Scripture proper names, in a country where reading the Scripture makes part of the religious worship, seem to demand some work on this subject more perfect than any we have hitherto seen. I could have wished it had been undertaken by a person of more learning and leisure than myself; but we often wait in vain for works of this kind, from those learned bodies which ought to produce them, and at last are obliged, for the best we can get, to the labours of some necessitous individual. Being long engaged in the instruction of youth, I felt the want of a work of this kind, and have supplied it in the best manner I am able. If I have been happy enough to be useful, or only so far useful as to induce some abler hand to undertake the subject,-I shall think my labour amply rewarded. I shall still console myself with reflecting, that he who has produced a prior work, however inferiour to those that succeed it, is under a very different predicament from him who produces an after-work, inferiour to those that have gone before. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION. THE favourable reception of the first edition of this work has induced me to attempt to make it still more worthy of the acceptance of the public, by the addition of several critical observations, and particularly by two Terminational Vocabularies, of Greek and Latin, and Scripture Proper Names. That so much labour should be bestowed upon an inverted arrangement of these words, when they had already been given in their common alphabetical order, may be matter of wonder to many persons, who will naturally inquire into the utility of such an arrangemeut. To these it may be answered, that the words of all languages seem more related to each other by their terminations than by their beginnings; that the Greek and Latin languages seem more particularly to be thus related; and classing them according to their endings, seemed to exhibit a new view of these languages, both curious and useful: for as their accent and quantity depend so much on their termination, such an arrangement appeared to give an easier and more comprehensive idea of their pronunciation than the common classification by their initial syllables. This end was so desirable as to induce me to spare no pains, however dry and disgusting, to promote it; and if the method I have taken has failed, my labour will not be entirely lost if it convinces future prosodists that it is not un worthy of their attention. S CONTENTS OF THE INTRODUCTION THE pronunciation of Greek and Latin not so difficult as that of our own la guage. The ancient pronunciation of Greek and Latin, a subject of great controversy among the learned. The English, however faulty in their pronunciation of Greek and Latin, pronounce them like other European nations, according to the analogy of their own language. Sufficient vestiges remain to prove that the foreign pronunciation of the Grees and Latin letters is nearer to the ancient than the English. The English pronunciation of Greek and Latin injurious to quantity. Rule for accenting Greek proper names. Probable conjecture why the termination tia and tio in Greek appellatives have not the same sound as in the Latin. Importance of settling the English quantity with which we pronounce Greek and Latin proper names, and particularly that of the unaccented syllables. |